Friday, June 04, 2004|
ObjectExegesisParanoia. What is the obsession (paranoia) with trying to define (exegesis) learning objects (no definitions)? It is certainly useful to have understandable definitions for tightly constrained concepts like triskaidekaphobia, but when trying to introduce faculty new to the concept of learning objects, it seems almost unavoidable to stop them from wanting to labor over finding or writing yet another definition. Can't we just move on to doing things with objects? Last month's Syllabus column by Philip Long, "Learning Object Repositories, Digital Repositories, and the Reusable Life of Course Content" (I will not elaborate on how I loathe the "R"-word) features a sidebar of "Learning Object Definitions" worth lobbing a few tomatoes at: “...a learning object is defined as any entity, digital or non-digital, that may be used for learning, education, or training.” That helps- so this means that anything and everything is a learning object, from a PowerPoint file to a pencil to a bunsen burner to... well you get it. Dalziel (2002) describes a learning object as “an aggregation of one or more digital assets, incorporating meta-data, which represents an educationally meaningful stand-alone unit.” Actually this one is almost palpable, yet is the door open on whether meta-data is strictly required for an object to be a learning object? I can fall either way, as meta-data to be honest seems to be needed to categorize, find, use, etc, but aren't there re-usable digital learning units that lack meta-data? The JORUM+ project adopted the following definition: “A learning object is any resource that can be used to facilitate learning and teaching that has been described using metadata.” Ahh, the combo of numbers 1 and 2- a learning object is nearly anything, as long as it has been described with a meta-data. So slap some Dublin Core on Mr Fike the math teacher (actually, he was my math teacher in 2nd grade, but lacked meta-data... we had our own meta-descriptors for him) and he is a learning object, or toss some IMS over the Librarian's hair, and she is meta-data.... Do any of these alone or all of these combined make the whole soup easier to sip? Gag.... The search for a single, encompassing definition is futile as you end up dividing camps between the "it must be digital" vs "it is anything", to the notion that you need metadata or assessment, to some feeble attempt to quantify how big or small it is...., well definitions end up being what individuals or groups want them to be. Could we just move off the definitions for a while and come back to it in 20 years and write a retrospective?? Now about this number 13, that is something worth worrying about... [cogdogblog]5:53:39 PM 
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Lemmings no more: the rise of personal knowledge management. A recent lunch conversation with Yan Simard - who's been keeping an eye on trends in the management literature - and Lilia Efimova's recent pointer to a KM Magazine feature on personal knowledge management made me realize that the individual-centered approach to knowledge management is finally breaking into the mainstream, meaning that it is about to get management buy-in in organization settings. Obviously I think this is very good news. I don't believe this is happening simply because the fruits are ripe but rather because people are finally getting hungry - the demand, not the supply, is the dominant factor here. I've been trying to identify a deeper cause of this transition; here are my thoughts. For anyone working within an organization or institution, there are tremendously strong incentives to "act normal". Going along with what everybody else is doing - following "best practices" and all - has been an almost surefire way not to get in trouble. But what's happening now is that change is accelerating in many aspects of business and in society in general. Many organizations are under intense pressure to adapt to changing conditions, but are built in a way that does not make them very adaptable. In many cases, their functioning has become out of touch with reality, and the behavior norms that exist within them have become useless or even detrimental.
Once that "breaking out" step has been taken they have probably already begun building some kind of personal scaffolding to organize their thoughts, but not yet found any existing group that shares their new models. You could say they are at the "atomisation" or "disintegration" stage. Personal knowledge management methods and tools come as natural supports at that point, because they give us the freedom to organize things and think about them on our own. I think what is happening these days is that growing numbers of people are living through the pattern I've just outlined, popping out of accepted wisdom and seeking a more sensible way of dealing with their knowledge work. People in management positions are often the last to "question the answers" offered by the existing norms, because they typically got to where they are by doing the opposite. But in the face of mounting organizational anxiety and instability, they are themselves increasingly thrown into a process of questioning, and are thus ripe for embracing personal knowledge management - sanctioning what many of their employees have been discreetly doing for a long time. [Seb's Open Research] 3:52:19 PM
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Email Click Decline Self Imposed. Email Insider: Email Worst Practices: A Must-Read Primer on Bad Email Practices Much of the decline in email clickthrough rates may have more to do with amateurish email mistakes than it does with... [summary] [MarketingVOX - The Voice of Online Marketing] 3:42:48 PM
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Last update: 11/19/2005; 4:47:17 PM .
